These Wise Men of Old
by Mysana
Summary: There is something to be said to those who view the Hogwarts Founders as perfection among mortals. That is: you really wouldn't have said that if you were there.


Rowena, Helga, and Salazar stared at Godric, and the hat he held in his hands.

"What?" Salazar asked after a minute, because all Godric had done was rush in shouting, 'I've found the answer!' and hadn't expanded on that idea at all.

"This is my thinking cap!" Godric said, shoving the tidy, though worn, hat towards Helga who took a step back.

"Yes we know, Rowena said slowly, in case Godric has completely lost his mind (again), "you're very proud of your hat."

"Of course I am, my Master Ezra made it, it was his last gift to me." Rowena and Salazar shared a look, they _knew_. He'd told them each at least a dozen times.

"Godric, please use your words," Helga said with a carefully withheld sigh. Godric blinked at them for a moment before putting his hat carefully onto a nearby table.

"We were trying to decide how to decide which house students go into." Rowena frowns (annoyed she hadn't found a good solution yet - or rather she _had_ but Salazar hadn't liked it); Salazar pursed his lips (really he thought it would be obvious); and Helga nodded for Godric to continue. "So I was thinking…." Rowena and Salazar both wince, the last time Godric had been 'thinking' they'd agreed on the Hogwarts motto. ('Why should you haven have to tell someone not to poke a sleeping dragon?!' Helga had exclaimed, tossing her hands in the air, looking at her fellow founders smoking clothing.)

"My hat can sort them!"

There is another brief pause as Godric's co-conspirator tried to process what he was saying. They had only ever seen the hat when Godric was trying to think something through and ended up yelling at it loud enough to draw their attention.

Helga imagined new students to the school, seven to 15 years old, putting on the hat and standing sightly for a minute while Godric's sweaty old hat rested on the bridge of their nose. She imagined waiting while the new student grew increasingly outraged until they started crying (new students were always particularly delicate). She imagined the hat sorting them into Slytherin because they lacked proper 'spirit' (something Godric had claimed before… several times).

Rowena imagined the hat sorting students based on hair colour.

Salazar imagined a student asking nicely and getting to go wherever they want because the hat is so shocked. (A muggle-bred student, visiting their muggle parents over break, in their muggle village, in _Slytherin_.)

"… And… how would that work, Godric, exactly?" Helga finally manages (her imagination is much more detail on the topic, but also much less traumatising, since it's basically the automated version of what's already happening).

"How much do you actually know about my thinking cap?" Godric asks, straightening up. All of the sudden Helga is reminded that Godric, despite being only 19 years of age, stands toe to toe with the rest of them, all of whom are at least 4 years old. (Helga is the oldest at 31, while Rowena is the second youngest at 23 and Salazar just a touch older at 24.) Most of the time you can see Godric's age in his every action and misbehaviour, but sometimes she is reminded that he built his fourth of Hogwarts with his own wand, and his here under his own power.

"Not much at all," Salazar sniff, no doubt still annoyed Godric wouldn't let him take it apart those (what was it- three, four) years ago.

"My thinking cap is not _exactly_ capable of independent thought, but it's a bit like a mirror I suppose. I refuse to explain the details of course," Godric added, rather unnecessarily, this was a master/student secret and no one would ask him to share- well. Actually Salazar and Rowena would so maybe it was for the best that he stated his limits upfront. "If I instruct it to sort it into a house, it'll do so, to the best of it's ability, is my point."

"And _how_ do we control where the student is sorted?" Salazar asked, perhaps a touch more sharply that Godric's suggestion deserved (then again, maybe not, Godric sometimes made… interesting… choices).

"We tell it how. I think it should be instructed to sort the students where they _want_ to go. That way they will work to do their best for their house."

There was a pause before Rowena spoke up,

"It sounds to me like you're saying that the language of the instruction is very important, is that correct?"

"Yeah," Godric nodded and gave the hat a gentle stroke, as if it were a living creature.

"I suggest that your hat sorts students based on where they could do their best." Rowena said with a nod and a tone that suggested that was that.

"Well _I_ think that hat should sort best on where they deserve to be." Salazar said in an arching tone and Rowena sighed,

"You've got it wrong Salazar, because _deserve_ is different based on who you are. _You_ think muggles _deserve_ to eat dust and ashes. _I_ think muggles _deserve_ to live in peace without fearing magical wrath."

Helga watched and thought, she wanted students to go where they would be happiest, but also where they would fit in. Or maybe where they could learn something, perhaps it would be best for students to join a house that showed a trait they needed to learn. Then again, that would end up with a bunch of students who needed to learn the value of hardworking in her house, and that was not exactly what she wanted. She wanted students who _tried_ , who wanted to be better, and who worked for it.

"I vote that Godric's hat sorts students to where they try to meet." Helga said, nodding softly to herself, there didn't seem to be a good way of saying it, but that was what she wanted.

"What do you mean by that Helga?" Godric asked, ignoring Rowena and Salazar's increasingly irrelevant debate (something about the origins of the word deserve, and which language was more something?).

"I want students who try to be hardworking and loyal, they are children after all and one can't expect them to have reached their full potential just yet. Students who are _already_ loyal and hardworking would perhaps be better served in Gryffindor, for example. They need to learn the values and dangers of chivalry, the same way they have already learned them for Hufflepuff's values."

"Fine then! You absolute _witch!_ " Salazar shouted, his magic lurching around him and making the silverware clang. "The hat should sort based on who they _will be_!" Salazar crossed his arms and turned away before murmuring just a touch too loudly, " _trying_ is for _losers_."

Helga, of course, could not let this stand and fired off a stinging hex towards his backside, and not much more work was done that day.

In fact, which instruction to choose became a debate that went on far too long. Eventually a new year, and new students arrived and all four founders, near on simultaneously, realised they didn't have a way to sort the now _45_ new students between the ages of four, and 17. The absolute wave of students included those from across the globe, many of whom were too weak or too poor to afford being an apprentice. Some of whom seemed to have no redeeming traits at all (particularly a muggle/witch child who seemed to delight in using one of the three spells she knew to trip up the other new students).

In the end, all four instructions were told to the hat by Godric who (reluctantly) pushed for them all with the same weight before rushing off to place the hat on new heads.

So perhaps, giving enchanted objects new instructions should be done with more than one candle length of time to spare might be a good idea, but the new students were already waiting and there was _so much_ to do. Afterwards, the hat had worked well enough (even if Godric was not thrilled about his new bully of a student) and no one really had time to waste on something that already worked.

A/N:

This fic was also, in part, inspired by _birdstark_ 's tumblr post which says:

 _I just came to this 2 a.m. realisation._  
 _Gryffindor: I want to be._  
 _Slytherin: I will be._  
 _Ravenclaw: I could be._  
 _Hufflepuff: I try to be._


End file.
